For a Menifee household with solar and battery backup, planning which lights stay available after dark is a useful step before an outage. Start with the route to the bathroom, stairs, an occupied room and the exit you would use—not simply the total number of bulbs in the house.
The City of Menifee's preparedness page identifies Southern California Edison as the local power utility and recommends flashlights and fresh batteries in emergency supplies. For an SCE-served home, those portable lights complement a properly configured home battery. This is evergreen preparation, not an announcement of a current outage. Sources were checked September 24, 2026.
Identify the lights connected to backup
PG&E's battery overview explains the basic limitation: backup depends on the circuits served, stored charge and household demand. A charged battery does not establish that every room has power.
Ask your installer to identify the lighting circuits and outlets included in your approved backup design. A ceiling light and a nearby plug-in lamp may need separate confirmation. During the provider's supervised handover, request a demonstration of the specific lights your household plans to use.
Our practical suggestion is to write a short room-by-room list and keep it with the operating instructions. Prioritize usable light along walking routes; reducing consumption should not leave steps or obstacles difficult to see.
Use actual watts in the lighting budget
The Federal Trade Commission's bulb guide distinguishes brightness in lumens from electricity use in watts. It gives an example of an approximately 9-watt LED producing the roughly 800 lumens of a traditional 60-watt incandescent bulb.
For an illustrative evening plan, assume six LED bulbs each actually draw 9 watts and remain on for five hours:
- Combined lighting demand: 6 × 9 = 54 watts.
- Lighting energy: 54 × 5 ÷ 1,000 = 0.27 kWh.
Those figures describe only the assumed bulbs. They exclude inverter losses, battery-system consumption, refrigeration, communications and every other load. They do not establish five hours of available backup. Use your lamps' actual ratings and have the provider include the complete load profile and starting charge in any runtime estimate.
When replacing bulbs, compare brightness as well as wattage and follow the fixture's compatibility requirements. “60-watt equivalent” is a brightness comparison, not necessarily a 60-watt electrical load.
Keep portable lighting ready
SCE's emergency-preparedness guidance includes flashlights, working batteries and portable chargers in the household kit. Keep lights somewhere familiar and accessible, and check them before they are needed.
Our recommendation is to give household members a simple fallback: which flashlight to reach for if a room's light is unavailable or the home battery stops supplying power. A rechargeable lamp still needs its own charge checked. Avoid using your phone's flashlight as the only planned light when that phone also supports communication.
Solar cannot recharge the home battery after dark. Daytime recharge requires suitable sunlight and compatible backup equipment. If an outage continues, our Menifee restoration-estimate guide explains how to use SCE updates without treating an estimated restoration time as a guarantee.
Include lighting needs in a PPA proposal
A qualifying no-upfront solar-plus-battery PPA can provide access to equipment without an upfront purchase. The CPUC solar guide explains that a PPA provider owns the solar system and charges for its generated electricity.
Ask which battery and lighting circuits are included, who handles maintenance and replacement, and whether circuit changes cost extra. Review eligibility, ongoing rate, escalator, term, battery ownership, home-sale provisions and remaining utility charges. No upfront purchase does not mean free electricity or guaranteed savings.
Bring your lighting priorities to West Coast Alternatives' homeowner journey for a solar-and-battery discussion grounded in how your household would use backup.